Authors: Kerry Reichs
A
ndy was surprised not to smell dinner when he entered the house. The kitchen was cold, and there was no sign of Summer. She’d be happy he’d gotten the Cornin assignment. He found her in her dressing room, fastening a string of pearls. He stepped behind her and took over as she held up her straw hair. She was wearing a little black dress, which meant they were going out. For the life of him, Andy couldn’t recall where.
“Hurry up,” Summer urged as she stepped to her scarf shelf. “You’re late.” Andy had stopped trying to understand why Summer deliberated among her scarves when she was only going to tie the lucky selection to the strap of her purse, but he knew better than to ask. He could tell that he was expected to remember where they were going.
“What tie should I wear?” he fished.
She eyed him. “The blue one I brought back from San Francisco.”
That could mean anything.
“Will there be food?” he hazarded.
She came over, scarf in hand, and kissed his cheek. “There better be after we spent three hundred dollars a plate to attend.”
It was the Herb Green fund-raiser. Herb was the current Chair—and iron fist—of the Santa Monica City Council. He faced reelection in the fall, though his incumbency was assured, and he was hosting a series of campaign fund-raisers. Every Democratic member of the City Council would be there, which was basically every member, and Summer was determined to insert Andy into this social sphere. She radiated excited energy, and he decided not to bring up the Maryn problem.
“Let’s hope it’s not boiled chicken.” He went to get his tie.
“Silly, it’s at Morton’s,” Summer said, and Andy’s mood lifted for the first time all day at the thought of a well-cooked steak.
At the steak house they were shown to a private room. Summer coughed discreetly and Andy couldn’t blame her. Pungent smoke permeated the air. The source was a bald, red-faced man with a fat cigar clenched in his teeth. Herb Green was as rotund as Boss Hogg.
Summer drew a deep breath, as if to last, and they approached.
“. . . they don’t even try to stop me anymore,” the fat man chortled. “That’s Morton’s official Herb Green memorial ashtray. I pass the ordinances, so I guess I can pass the exceptions. Exception one is a two-foot radius encircling the corpus of one Herb Green, a full smoking zone by order of the Chair of the City Council!” His gesture sprinkled ash on those unfortunate enough to be close, and his guffaw turned into rasping coughs. A woman whose ridiculously skinny arms hardly seemed up for the task of her bangles pounded him on the back.
“You tell ’em, Herb.”
The councilman’s shirt appeared to be strangling him, fat rolls spilling over the straining collar button. Andy was concerned the fastening would burst, striking someone in the eye.
“Chairman Green? Summer Knox. We met through Josh Myers.” Summer held out her hand.
“You’re the weather gal.”
Andy noticed the suppressed wince. “This is my husband, Andrew.” She gestured.
“Hello, hello.” Herb’s giant paw swallowed Andy’s hand. “Glad you could come.”
He started to turn away, but Summer was used to having to work harder than beautiful girls. “Delighted to be here. We moved to Santa Monica because of the excellent governance under your stewardship. In fact, we were interested in becoming involved with your campaign. Perhaps we could host a fund-raiser at our home on San Vicente.”
Herb perked up. “Well, that’s a fine offer. You should speak to my campaign manager here, Charming Tommy.” He clapped the back of a tall, thin man wearing spectacles and a bow tie.
“Tom Sizec.” The man shook hands but didn’t engage, more stressed than charming. He seemed anxious to shepherd Herb among his supporters, but Tommy was no match for Summer.
Summer wooed Herb Green, and when dinner was served, Andy found himself seated next to the large man as Summer deftly deflected Charming Tommy.
From his vantage, Andy marveled over the amount of starch, steak, and wine Herb consumed. The rotund man only passed on the vegetables.
“Strictly a meat and potatoes man,” Herb confided, globbing another dollop of sour cream on his mashed potatoes. “Roughage doesn’t do right by me.”
That was more than enough information for Andy. He found himself principally listening to talk about recent budget debates. They could have been Charlie Brown’s teacher for all he understood. A young man wearing a bolo tie also wasn’t saying much. He seemed to be waiting. Andy found the bolo tie surprising because the man wore a wedding ring, and neither Maryn nor Summer would have let Andy out of the house in one. Something about Jed Clampett and the eighties.
“ . . . so a sliding scale of pay cuts is preferable to layoffs,” concluded a corpulent man to Herb’s left.
Herb grunted at the waiter for more wine. The man with the bolo tie leaped in.
“What about the Bs, Councilman Green?”
The ridiculously skinny woman rolled her eyes and the corpulent man snorted, a scornful Jack Spratt and his wife. Herb remained neutral.
“What d’you think?” Herb directed his question to Andy.
Andy panicked. What could the Bs mean? The Better Business Bureau? A pneumonic, like Buses, Bikes, and the Boardwalk? Andy didn’t know. Luckily bolo tie didn’t wait. His words made Andy feel like an idiot.
“I speak for the entire American Beekeeping Federation when I say the crisis of colony collapse disorder has reached critical proportions! Fifty percent of honeybee colonies in California have been killed or severely weakened.”
“California honeybees are responsible for nearly half of the state’s eighteen-billion-dollar agricultural industry.” Charming Tommy sent Herb a look.
Herb took his cue. “Tell me more.”
“One-third of the human diet is derived from honeybee-pollinated crops. Unless measures are taken to protect bees, many fruits and vegetables may disappear from the food chain. Human life would end within four years!” The earnest man was vibrating. “The City Council must stop the practice of exterminating feral bees in favor of relocating them, and lift the ban on beekeeping.”
Andy thought about bees and came to the conclusion that he didn’t think much about bees. They did make him think of honey, which made him think of the Santa Monica farmers’ market, which reminded him of how much he loved the farmers’ market and made him wonder why he didn’t go more often. Then he remembered Summer bitching while they were stuck in market traffic, roasting in the car, and recalled why he didn’t go more often. Andy decided to have an Issue.
As Charming Tommy placated the bee advocate and the woman turned to order coffee, Andy leaped in.
“I’ll tell you my issue,” he said casually, hoping he recalled the statistics. “Traffic light synchronization. Did you know that traffic jams in the most congested sections of the city could be reduced by twenty percent with a traffic-signal timing plan for the downtown area? I was reading—”
“Son, it’s been great talking to you. I gotta go,” Herb boomed, standing abruptly and clapping a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “I feel a poop coming on. It’s my personal curse that it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, and at the moment I haven’t crapped since Wednesday. Unless you count shitting all over crazy Richie Gregson’s plan to expand the smoking ban to inside apartment units.” His bark of laugher caused another coughing spasm. Charming Tommy Sizec’s anxiety became both amplified and understandable. Herb bid the table farewell. “I never poop in a public place. It’s best enjoyed at home.”
He lumbered off, Charming Tommy scrambling after. While most of the other diners seemed unfazed, Andy was so shocked he forgot to mourn the demise of his Issue. He didn’t care for open discussions of bodily functions.
“Lord, if I couldn’t poop in public restrooms I’d have to give up going out or put on sixty pounds,” the impossibly skinny woman said to Andy, washing a laxative down with her coffee.
I
’m here,” I called to my mother as I dropped my scarf on the foyer table next to the wooden frog with an amber-studded clock in its stomach. It was a centimeter past a gallbladder.
“
Jūs esat vēlu
.” You’re late.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Traffic.”
“You cannot say that, traffic. Every day there is traffic in Los Angeles. You must think about traffic and be on time. When I was a young girl working we had no traffic, we had no cars. I walk forty-five minutes to the factory. I was not late.”
“I know,
Mamu
.” I kissed the top of her head, distressed by how I had to bend to do it, my shrinking mother. “What’s for dinner?”
“Your favorite. Bratwurst and sauerkraut.”
I detested sauerkraut, but once my mother gets something into her head, it’s as impregnable as the Scientology records room. Better to choke down the kraut. The one time I’d protested, I’d left so confused that for three days I’d been persuaded I loved fermented shredded cabbage.
“
Kā bija jūsu diena
?” How was your day?
“Same, same. Always same. These eyes! I cannot see, I cannot sew, I cannot read, your old useless mother. Good for nothing. They call this golden age. They can keep their golden age.” Macular degeneration had stripped my mother of the enjoyment of retirement.
“I have this.” I held up a cassette tape. My mother might be the only person to listen to cassettes since Y2K.
“Ay!
Paldies
. I want to know if Dr. Reyes, she tell Dr. Wade to shove it. ”
The cassette was the latest
Pulse
episode in Latvian, with me performing all the parts. Audio stories helped pass the long hours, but English-language recordings went too quickly for her to understand. I taped
Pulse
and the various scripts I received in her native tongue. This week, Dr. Reyes did indeed tell Dr. Wade to shove something somewhere, but not in my G-rated adjustment. I only prayed that the Latvian church ladies didn’t watch
Pulse
because their recount and my mother’s would never match.
“Don’t you want to know what happens to me?”
“Pffffft,” she dismissed. “You I know. You save some young girl, be sensitive. Come. We eat.”
I glanced at the frog, and congratulated myself on forestalling dinner to 5:17
PM
. Often so eager for the big event of the day, if you didn’t intervene, my mother’s anxiousness to tend to the roast led to four thirty dining. I didn’t complain because I couldn’t imagine a life where it was evening all afternoon. It would be like Clarissa Dalloway without the flowers or the party, only the endless, ever-dropping hours you could not fill. My mother’s acute brain had been cheated by her failing body.
“Next week I’ll record a new movie script I got. It’s called
Cora
,” I said as I calculated how much sauerkraut I had to gag down to be suitably grateful.
“
Paldies, mīlas vārdi,
” she thanked me again. “Is Western?” My mother loved Westerns. They were so very American.
“No. It’s a film I’m considering.” Strong words since I’d learned of it this morning.
“What!” She put down her fork. “
Pulse
, it’s canceled? You killed?”
“Nothing like that. I’ve been asked to look at a part. It’s the lead.” I tried to suppress the excitement in my voice.
Her beady stare didn’t waver. “What you thinking? You have good job!”
“This wouldn’t interfere with Roxy,” I assured her. “It’s a movie I’d do in addition to
Pulse
.”
“Is risky. They find other actress while you away. Roxy’s part disappear.”
“This movie could be great for me,
Mamu
. The director, Julian Wales, he won the Academy Award for best director last year. It’s worth a risk.”
“No.” My mother pulled me down with a bump. “Risk is no getting on the boat for America because you have fungus infection on your nails from digging in dirt to make food for your family. Risk is your
vecamama
, your papa’s
mamu
, having fingernails pulled off her hands with no medicine for the pains so she get her family on that boat and come to America for a better life. Why you want risk? Is crazy.”
“It’s not the same . . .”
“You make good money, you have nice house, you no worry. You want like before, when you live eight girls? You so skinny I see through you. You no eat, you no have car, you no have gym and hairsdo and nice things you got now.”
My palms started to ache. “No.” I did not want to return to my Ramen hot pot pre-Roxy days.
“You pick crazy job. I no understand why. You should be lawyer or bookkeeper, but no, you choose job with no jobs. America crazy that way. In my country we farm, we make food. We build, we make houses. Here, you make costumes and speeches. And for what? For worry all the time about the money. And when you get one job, good one, pays bills, you want to screw up?”
“No,” I repeated. I did not. She was right. There were few steady jobs for B-list or below actresses, and I was D list at best. I’d been letting red-carpet fantasies about Julian Wales carry me away. I blamed LaMimi’s imagination.
Mamu
waved her bony finger at me. “You good girl,
dārgais
. You need be responsible.”
The idea
was
foolishness. Julian Wales wouldn’t pick a TV actress to play Cora. “I was only thinking about it. I wouldn’t have gotten it anyway.” Thank god I hadn’t said anything on set. It would have been embarrassing. “What’s for dessert?”
“Orange fluff.” My mother pushed back her chair. “Then you read bills for me. No can read, even with magnificent glass.”